


The Siren

by YdrittE



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Human Experimentation, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2018-12-05 10:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YdrittE/pseuds/YdrittE
Summary: The place he’s in is a place full of water inside a place full of air inside a place full of water, each separated from the next by thick, soundproof glass walls. They keep things in, they keep things out. The air is stuck between the water, and the glass keeps out the creatures of the sea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to "weird-ass, confusing stream-of-consciousness thing that I wrote because my brain likes water". If you follow me on Tumblr you might remember this from the "write the first sentence of a WIP of yours and tag as many people as the sentence has words in it" thing that I did a while ago. Well, I finally kicked it out of my WIPs folder and into the world. Enjoy!

He dimly remembers what it was like to walk. One foot in front of the other, down the hallway, into the labs. Out of the labs, back to his apartment. Out of his apartment, into his office. Out of his office, into enemy territory. Walking, always walking, towards some goal.

Here, it’s different. He hasn’t walked in what feels like years. Maybe it has been years; he doesn’t know. He lost all concept of time long ago.

Down here there’s no day or night. The light is artificial; it comes from tubes stuck to the ceiling. The place he’s in is a place full of water inside a place full of air inside a place full of water, each separated from the next by thick, soundproof glass walls. They keep things in, they keep things out. The air is stuck between the water, and the glass keeps out the creatures of the sea.

He knows that there’s a rhythm to when the people watching him change, but it hurts his head whenever he tries to count them. He remembers back in the beginning, right after he got here. He remembers learning their schedule. The reason eludes him these days, but it was something important, he knows that much. He watched them watch him, and came as close as he could to the glass wall separating water from air, squinting his eyes to try and read the neat little name tags pinned to their lab coats. He used to know all their names, and exactly when they would take their place outside the glass to watch him. He doesn’t anymore.

 

Back in the beginning, he would bare his teeth at them, and throw his body against the glass in a helpless attempt to get out, escape, fight. His mind was ringing from the terrible silence of the space surrounding him, hammering against his temples and driving him mad. There was no sound in his world, no voices, no noises, nothing. He couldn’t take it. He saw them move their mouths to form words, and knew that beyond the glass there would be sound. Reaching the sound was the only objective left in his crumbling mind.

It ended when they installed the music player. A neat little thing, near the top of the dome he was trapped in, stuck to the glass and connected to speakers all over the facility. It had a touchpad where he could select whatever music he wanted. After months and what felt like years of absolute silence, he was ecstatic. This was when he started moving around properly for the first time, dancing to the music, testing his boundaries.

He remembers the dreamy, admiring gaze of the female assistant that watched him on the day he chose to turn the music against them. It was night shift. Most of the facility was asleep. Only she was still there, observing him, relaxed and happy and lulled into safety by the soft tune he had chosen. She hadn’t known that he had queued up songs earlier that day. They never paid attention to that back then. He had so far gone with tranquil, soothing music, and for some reason they thought he would keep doing that.

The next three weeks went by in a crescendo of noise and sleep-deprived lab assistants. No-one got any sleep. Least of all him, but he rarely slept as it was. Once again, he was ecstatic, but this time for a different reason. They were getting tired. He was slowly but surely grinding their patience with him into dust. Soon, they would snap. They would take away his music. And when they did, he would strike. The moment they opened the hatch at the top of the dome, he would drag one of them down, and not let go until he was freed from this place. That was what he would do. The moment they tried to take his music.

They never did. He danced to his music, and tried to keep them on their toes by playing loud things at unexpected times. But they never took his music away. It wasn’t until later that he realized why. By then, it was too late.

He stopped selecting music.

He danced to whatever was playing.

He stopped paying attention to who was watching him when.

 

He stopped planning.

He stopped thinking.

And started… forgetting.

They dragged him into the water, and stuck tubes to his body to keep him from drowning. They ripped off his clothes and exposed him to the core. They never bothered to cut his hair. He was fed intravenously. And as time went by, strangely, he stopped feeling like he was drowning. He stopped feeling like he was floating. And, in the end, he stopped feeling like he was human.

They watched him, monitored his behaviour, how he adapted to his watery prison. They looked on from beyond the soundproof glass while his mind went astray and deteriorated. While he lost himself to the joy of moving to the music. It was so easy, and so simple. It made him happy. And, most of all, it made him forget.

 

He has trouble remembering who he is. His friends’ faces have faded into a blur, their names smudges on a piece of paper. His head hurts whenever he tries to think of his past, the life he was forced to leave behind. He knows he used to be someone. But who?

There’s a small tattoo on the back of his neck, obscured by his hair.

It says “J-001”.

He doesn’t remember that he has it.

 

They kick in the door. He sees it, and he dimly remembers what it must sound like. Men in heavy uniforms storm into the room, pointing guns at people. Lab assistants try to take cover, throw themselves to the floor, and raise their hands in surrender. He hovers near the glass and watches in dim confusion, trying to make sense of what’s happening. Three men enter the room, striding past the chaos. Something stirs in the back of his mind.

There are a lot of things happening very quickly after that. One of the three men yells and throws fireballs around the room and tries to attack one of the lab assistants. The other two just barely manage to hold him back. There’s fingers pointing in his direction, and a female assistant is crying and talking at the same time. He watches, and doesn’t understand.

The hatch opens above him. He raises his head. A little voice in the back of his mind whispers to grab one of the people up there and drag them down, but he sees no real reason to do that, so he doesn’t. Nothing happens for a while, and he realizes that they’re waiting. Are they waiting for him to do something?

He approaches slowly, warily, ready to bolt at any moment. This is his territory. He has the upper hand here. They reach out and offer their hands to him when he’s close enough. He doesn’t understand.

And suddenly, everything is bright and sharp and _loud_ and he can’t breathe. They are pulling the tubes out of his spine and it _hurts_ so much. He gasps helplessly and feels like drowning. There’s shouting all around him, tearing into his senses. He gags and throws up water, and the three men hold him steady while he does it. His spine is on fire and the tube in his stomach feels like it’s punching a hole straight through his intestines. He can’t breathe.

They hold him back when he tries to crawl back into the water. The one who was throwing fireballs earlier is crying and screaming and shaking him. He feels like he’s forgotten something important.

 

When he wakes up again he is lying on a warm, comfortable surface in a white, clean room. The tube in his stomach is gone; the area covered by something white and soft. His spine has stopped burning and feels very numb. There are very small tubes stuck in his arms that are connected to buzzing metal boxes with lights on them. A woman in a white lab coat with a name tag pinned to it turns in his direction when he starts moving his limbs. He feels so heavy. She leaves and makes some noise outside, and more people come. Outside, beyond a glass window he sees the three men sitting together. His mind feels fuzzy, but there’s a memory there somewhere.

They try to get him to respond to things, test his reactions, his instincts. He can catch a fruit that is thrown at him. He drops it as soon as he’s caught it. They point at it and make noises. He doesn’t understand.

They pull him upright and gesture excitedly, and he thinks he knows what they want. He dimly, very dimly remembers walking. His legs give out after the second step forward. They have to heave him back onto the comfortable surface.

Everything hurts and his body feels too heavy. He curls up and tries to hide behind his hair, tuning out the noises they make. Someone touches his shoulder, but he’s too tired to open his eyes. He hates this place. He wants back into the water.

The three men are brought into the room, accompanied by people in lab coats with name tags pinned to them. They make noises at the men and point at him. He thinks he’s forgotten something important.

 

The three spend lots of time with him and make it very obvious that they want him to respond to their attempts at communication. They make noises, and point at things, and pull their faces into different expressions that all look very strange, but familiar in a way. He finds it all mildly fascinating. They come back in what he assumes must be a regular rhythm, but counting time hurts his head. The one who threw fireballs cries sometimes and makes the same noise over and over. Something stirs in him, but he can’t place it no matter how hard he tries.

They bring someone else, a person in a lab coat with a name tag pinned to it. He knows that he should be able to place this person, and that there were probably some memories connected to him. But they’re gone and he can’t find them anymore. He closes his eyes and ignores the noises around him.

At some point they pull the little tubes out of his arms and carefully take off the soft, white thing that was covering his stomach area. They put him in clothes, very simple ones, and try to cut his hair to a more sensible length. That’s the first time in years that he makes a noise. People come running when they hear his screams, and immediately back off when they see the aimless chaos and destruction that he's causing. He remembers throwing himself against a soundproof glass wall that cut him off from all the noise in the world. The next thing he knows he is curled up on the floor with his hair wrapped around him, and cries without making a sound. They leave him to it, and only come back to replace the things he destroyed. They never try to cut his hair again.

He refuses food, and they put the tubes back into his arms. They try to get him to walk, but he collapses every time. They make noises, and he knows there is some sense behind them, but his mind feels numb and tired and he can’t bring himself to care. The three men come back every now and then, and one day they also bring the person in the lab coat that he knows he knows from somewhere. The one who threw fireballs is screaming at the one in the lab coat, and then he’s throwing fireballs again and there is a lot of confusion and noise and red all over. He never sees the lab coat person again.

He is asleep more often than not, and when he’s awake he listens to music and tries to move to the rhythm, but his body is so heavy. He misses the water. He is slowly getting used to eating things, and they get rid of the tubes in his arms again. He can walk around in his room sometimes, but it hurts his legs when he stands for too long. His hair reaches past his ankles and will soon start dragging on the floor behind him. He’ll never let them cut it.

They show him a mirror, and he recognizes himself. He makes faces and looks at his body the wrong way round. One day he finds the tattoo on his neck. His mind makes a noise he can’t place. He thinks it belongs to the person in the lab coat that is gone now. He doesn’t know where he knows that from.

Noises never make sense, but they show him how to make his hands express things that he sees. He feels more awake the more things he knows how to express, and his mind seems to wander less. He expresses ‘fire’ at the man who throws fireballs, and the man cries and makes the same noise over and over. He still doesn’t know why.

The three still come to visit, and he expresses what he knows. ‘Water’ is his favourite thing to express. They slowly teach him nuances, and more abstract things. ‘Easy’ and ‘difficult’, ‘want’ and ‘like’ and ‘dislike’, ‘feelings’ and then, one day, ‘memories’. A person in a lab coat expresses that thing with a long explanation of different things that are connected. He understands. He expresses that ‘memories’ is ‘difficult’. And they understand.

They teach him a thing that doesn’t seem to have any meaning connected to anything. It’s long and complicated, and he cannot get behind what it stands for. He expresses it at the one who throws fireballs. The man makes that noise he is so fond of. He expresses the thing he doesn’t understand. The man repeats the noise. He repeats the thing. It goes back and forth, and he thinks he understands the connection. The noise is the thing.

It’s easier from there. They teach him how expressing and noises are connected. He learns. The three men make noises, and teach him the corresponding expressions. There’s an expression for every noise. His mind is wide awake by then.

Noises start to make sense again. Slowly but surely, he starts understanding. He translates from noise to expression to meaning. The three men who visit him smile.

He expresses the noise that his brain made when he found the tattoo on his neck. The one he connected to the person in the lab coat. The three men stare at him. He expresses ‘lab coat’. He expresses ‘blood’ and ‘fire’ and the noise that belongs to the man who throws fireballs. There is a lot of excitement and hopeful noises after that.

 

It’s almost a year after he was rescued from the testing facility that he finally understands that the noise and expression they taught him, the one that doesn’t seem to connect to anything, belongs to him.

He expresses it with his hands, and looks at himself in the mirror. The scars along his spine and in his stomach area tingle lightly. He stares at himself.

A woman in a lab coat enters the room carrying a tray with food on it. He ignores her and continues to stare at his own face. His eyes. His hair.

He makes the noise that belongs to him.

The woman drops the tray of food.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking back on it now, it seems crazy how any of this could even have happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote things out of order because of course I would and also made myself cry because my brain is an asshole and told me to do bad things. This chapter mostly exists to explain some of the shit from the first chapter, and likewise the third chapter will explain some of the shit from this chapter. Enjoy!

Looking back on it now, it seems crazy how any of this could even have happened.

You’d think that your own General going missing would have more consequences than just a routine search mission and then later a public announcement declaring him dead. You’d think that the sudden incease in funds for the science department and the regular reports labelled “Confidential” that Hojo would read whenever he had time to spare would raise at least some suspicions. You’d think that being sent to guard supply trains that transported all kinds of building materials to Junon would help you connect the dots.

It didn’t.

We only finally understood the truth when we stood in that room full of cowering lab staff and stared at the creature hovering on the other side of the glass. No, not the _creature_. The _person_. Our _friend_.

 

But I am getting ahead of myself here. In order to understand what happened, we need to go back a bit, and work our way forward slowly.

This is a retelling of the events preceding and following the disappearance of Soldier First Class Sephiroth, General of the ShinRa Army, along with his recovery, rehabilitation, and attempted reintegration into society, and a final conclusion of the whole story. There are some things missing, some details and information that were exclusive to the head of the science department, Professor Hojo, and could never be recovered. Sephiroth’s escape and the incident in the Nibel mountains will also be excluded from this document, because we’ll never know what exactly happened except for some rudimentary details, and also because the memory is too painful to put into words. At least for me. With that in mind, let us start at the beginning:

 

Sephiroth’s relationship with the science department and the people in it, specifically Hojo, had never been good. He rarely spoke of his childhood, but what little he told us was enough to convince us that our number one priority should _always_ be “keep Sephiroth away from the labs, and the labs away from Sephiroth”. We lived by that rule. Of course, it wasn’t always possible to prevent him from going there – there were medical check-ups, mako shots, special appointments. But we tried.

So, when he disappeared, the first place we went to look for him was the labs. We searched every inch of the place, took apart all the machines, and questioned every person that had ever worked there. We turned Hojo over to the Turks in an attempt to get information. We tracked fundings, shippings, phone calls, emails, written reports… we put everything we had into making sure that if they were at fault, we would expose them.

To this day I am not entirely sure how they pulled it off. There are no reports that detail how they captured him, or how they got him to Junon without anyone noticing. Or how they managed to built a goddamn undersea research facility without it ever showing up in the budget, for that matter. Similarly, there is no existing statement as to _why_ they did it. It was done under Hojo’s orders, sure, but why? We can only guess. Genesis, Zack, and I had several theories about that particular detail, but I doubt we’ll ever be able to reach a definite conclusion.

 

We found him by accident. Avalanche had shot down an airship, and the three of us had been sent out in one of the submarines to locate the wreckage and, if possible, rescue any survivors. The facility we spotted was initially assumed to be a secret rebel base, and we received orders to investigate. And investigate we did.

You cannot even begin to imagine what it felt like to enter that observation room. To see the broken equipment, the lab assiststants, the chaos. And him. Gaia, you can’t imagine what it was like. We had searched for him. And given up on searching, I am ashamed to admit. We’d thought he was dead. And yet, here he was. Naked and stuck full of tubes, hair longer than ever and floating all around him, staring at us like we were some kind of aliens. And still, it was undeniably him.

How had he gotten here? What had they done to him, in all the years that he had been kept locked up like a zoo exhibit?

Why did he act like a suspicious animal when we finally pried open the metal hatch and offered him a way out? Why did he hesitate? What was going on inside his head?

We had no idea what had happened to his mind. Not yet.

 

We reached out and helped him out of the water, filled with relief and desperate to welcome our old friend back from the dead. We freed him of the tubes that they stuck in his spine, and called in medical assistance because we had no idea how to get that giant tube out of his stomach without severely injuring him in the process. We told him “We thought you were dead. Everyone told us you were dead” as he coughed and wheezed and tried to breathe. “We’re sorry we didn’t come for you sooner. We didn’t know. We never imagined this was where you were. We’re sorry.”

It took us far too long to realize that he didn’t understand a word we were saying, and even longer to grasp why he was trying to claw his way back into the water tank like a scared, wounded animal. Why he was staring at us like he had no idea what we even were.

There were many things we didn’t understand on the day we rescued him.

 

We were told that traces of toxic substances found both in the water and the tubes he had been connected to were partially responsible for the memory loss. The rest was psychological. After all, if they treat you like an animal long enough, you’ll sooner or later start to believe them. Apart from that, he appeared to be fine. No decrease in reaction time, no physical damage apart from the permanent but easily healable marks from where the tubes had been stuck in his flesh. No significant loss in weight. At first glance, he seemed fine.

At second glance… not so much.

It wasn’t long until they confirmed the suspicions we had concerning his ability to understand us. Then came the first attempts to get him to walk. And eat. And speak. And, and, and…

 

It was Genesis’ idea to drag Hojo out of the corner of the labs that he’d tried to hide in and bring him along for one of our visits. Not before punching him in the face several times, mind you, but Hojo had it coming. And his expression when standing in front of what used to be his strongest, most prized experiment, and seeing what had become of him, was worth it.

I don’t think Hojo ever visited the underwater facility himself, and was content to let the staff there handle everything. They sent reports every week detailing the health and general status of “the specimen”, but that was all. And while there _are_ reports detailing Sephiroth’s attempts at escaping and the things he did with the music, they never mentioned the fact that at some point, he _stopped selecting music_. Hojo had no idea what was going on at the facility. I am not sure if he would’ve stopped it if he’d known, but the fact remains that he didn’t know. And we showed him.

Genesis yelled a lot that day; he called Hojo a “traitor”, a “monster”, and various other colourful, vulgar things. I am sad to say that none of us were surprised that Sephiroth didn’t react to Hojo’s presence. We had given up on _that_ hope by that point.

 

Nothing ever seemed to work out. Sure, there was _some_ progress, but it was never permanent. His wounds healed well, they disconnected him from the machines, they got him to put on clothes. And then the hair incident happened, and everything was back to square one. None of the doctors are really sure why it made him freak out the way it did – and it wasn’t like they were shaving him bald! They just tried to cut off _a bit_ so that it would be easier to take care of. But how do you explain something like that to a person who doesn’t understand you anymore?

After that, he retreated completely for a while, to the point where they had to hook him up to the machines again to keep him from dying. It was a miserable time, for everyone involved.

Genesis blamed Hojo. Genesis always blamed Hojo. It was Hojo who ordered Sephiroth to be stuck in that water tank after all, so blaming him for _everything_ that was wrong seemed like the obvious thing to do. And, when you think about what happened to Sephiroth and what became of him because of it, it’s hard to disagree with Genesis in that regard.

I am not sure what his plan was when he once again dragged Hojo to the hospital and yelled at him. Whether he acted on impulse when he attacked him, or whether that had been the plan all along. Whether he hoped that killing Hojo in front of Sephiroth might stir up some kind of memory and bring back our old friend. Genesis never told us.

 

We still visited regularly. But it was mostly the doctors that we talked to. We barely ever saw Sephiroth in person. We were told that he was getting better, that he was getting used to eating and that his legs were getting stronger. That he recognized himself in a mirror. And that they were teaching him sign language.

That was the first of many surprises. None of us knew sign language, but after the first few words it was easier than we thought, and so we learned and learned and learned, hoping that we’d be able to keep up with Sephiroth. We thought he would go at this new exercise with the same speed, determination and perfectionism as he had at every single thing he did before he had lost his memories. We thought he would be a genius. We thought that he’d be _eloquent_.

When we first visited he did nothing but signal the word “water” over and over and over. We sat with him for over an hour, and all he did was say “water”. I know it’s stupid and irrational to be disappointed at something like that – after all, he was _talking_. He was communicating for the first time in years. But we had walked into his room expecting to have a conversation with the man we had lost. And all we got was “water”.

 

And then we got “fire”. Or, to be more precise, _Genesis_ got “fire”. And that was only the beginning.

Over the next few months, there were several milestones that marked the progress that he made. Three signs that showed that Sephiroth was coming back. Not as the same person as before, but he was coming back. And that would have to be enough.

The first one was the revelation that he was aware that he had lost his memories.

The second was Genesis helping him understand that signalling and speaking were connected.

And the third was when, out of the blue and for no apparent reason, Sephiroth signalled the word “Hojo”.

No-one had ever taught him that word. No-one had spoken of Hojo in his presence. There was no way he could’ve picked up the word from anyone. So where did he know it from?

It seemed to be the only thing he knew of himself and his past. But the fact that he knew anything at all, even if it was only one word, and that word was “Hojo”, gave us more hope than you can imagine.

 

We held onto this hope in the months that followed, and even after it was clear that the progress was permanent, that Sephiroth was improving steadily and that we wouldn’t lose him again, it was still the one thing we clung to whenever doubts arose. Sephiroth had said that memories were difficult, but there _was_ a memory there, even if it was nothing more than Hojo’s name. It was _something_. It was our safety net.

Until a year after the rescue, when one morning the nurse bringing breakfast heard him say his own name. Genesis was called back from a mission on the Western Continent, we were all ushered into a car and shipped to the hospital as fast as humanly possible, and when we finally assembled in his room he pointed at himself and said “Sephiroth”. And smiled.

I don’t think it’s possible to describe what that felt like, to hear him speak after all this time, to see that he knew who he was, and that he was aware that it meant something to us. It _hurt_ , more than anything, but in a good way. We were so _relieved_. I hadn’t even known how much doubt and worry had been there in my mind - I only noticed it when it was finally gone.

We cried, of course. What else would we do? But he said our names, and patted our heads, and smiled. And that made us cry even harder.

 

We never got him back in the end.

Yes, he got better – he was quite good at sign language, and able to move around the hospital grounds freely, albeit slowly. He sat by the lake in the park connected to the hospital premises, accompanied and guarded by one or several nurses, and watched the movement of the waves. He listened to music, or hummed little tunes of his own. He tried to do what he called “dancing”, which probably would’ve been a lot easier and looked more graceful if he’d been underwater for it. It seemed to relax him, so no-one ever tried to stop him from doing it.

But his health was fragile. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t jump, and while he was eventually strong enough to climb stairs, there was simply no way he could ever be a Soldier again. And beyond our names, his own, and the word “water”, he didn’t speak, no matter how hard we tried to encourage him. Writing hurt his wrist, reading tired him, and talking, I think, was simply not worth the effort for him.

And even though he was fond of us, and knew our names… he didn’t remember. His memories never returned.

And we never got the chance to make new ones.

 

I don’t think he ever escaped the water.

He’d been forced to exist in it for so long that he lost a part of himself to it – his past, his memories… and so many other things. And in return it had also become a part of him. In all the time after we rescued him, nothing was ever able to replace the happiness he had felt when he had lived in that dome full of water, dancing to the music, oblivious to anything but how light everything felt.

Maybe that was why he snuck away that final night, off to the park next to the hospital. Maybe that was why he walked into the lake and never got back out.

We cannot know what he was trying to find at the bottom of the lake, or if there even was a reason why he did it. Maybe he simply forgot that without tubes stuck to his body, he couldn’t breathe down there on his own. Maybe he was tired of this life, and the hardships he had to go through for no apparent reason. Maybe the water finally called him back, and he decided to go home.

Sephiroth was a great man, a strong Soldier, and above all else, a true and dear friend. He will be sorely missed among all of us. Too many people never got to look behind his arguably chilly façade the way that we did, and his life, cut short as it was, contained too much pain, too much sorrow, for someone as honest and kind as he was, at his core.

We can only hope that, whatever call he was following when he went back into the water, it led him somewhere happier than here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a game called “What Remains of Edith Finch”. The style of this chapter is inspired by the writing in that game, mostly Edith’s inner monologues and the letter from Lewis’ psychiatrist. I advise you to play it for yourself; it’s a very good game with a strong message.
> 
> I like to imagine this chapter as either Angeal’s speech that he gives at Sephiroth’s funeral, or as a report that he writes to finally rid himself of the story and the pain that it caused him. But of course you are free to interpret it in whatever way you wish. 
> 
> I originally intended to make this the third chapter and insert a second chapter before this one, but decided against it for reasons that will become clear after I get myself to write the actual third chapter. Also, I didn’t want to end this on such a depressing note. The third chapter will mostly be focused on two things that Angeal didn’t talk about.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate everything about this. Thank fuck I’m finally rid of it.  
> Sorry for taking literal months to write the rest. My muse ran off and did other shit. I had to drag her back by the hair to sit next to me while I wrote down the things that were still missing.

It starts in his sleep. Distant noises, close enough for him to perceive but too far away to understand. The voice is soft, turning the words into a melody that vibrates through his entire body and pulls at his core. He thinks he’s heard the voice before, but can’t place it. Maybe it was part of his life before the water.

The voice persists, and follows him out of his dreams into the waking world. Strangely enough, it seems to grow stronger when he’s near water, until he can _almost_ hear the words. Almost. Just a tiny bit closer.

He knows what to do.

He’s not allowed into water by himself, but it’s the easiest thing in the world to let his body go limp and float for a little while when going through his cleaning routine. A bathtub is hardly enough for him to dance, but floating will have to do for now.

And the voice comes. It slips right into his head, nestling behind his closed eyelids, and calls. So that’s what it was. It was calling. Calling, and pulling him to somewhere. _Water_ it says _Water behind glass._

A nurse pulls him up roughly and frantically checks his vital signs, holding his unkept hair out of the way while he coughs up water and tries to get the terrible burning in his muscles under control. He wishes she would’ve let him stay underwater for just a little while longer. It always hurts getting back up, worse every time, and his mind is never as peaceful as when surrounded by dim lights and dim sounds and weightlessness. But he never seems to be able to convey this sentiment to those taking care of him.

 

He doesn’t remember the moment the voice inside him grew strong enough to guide his feet. They moved quietly in the night, barefoot and soft on the tiled floor of the hospital, past the guards and through the gardens. And then further. He’s not sure where he is, but he’s still feeling the way the voice pulls at his soul, and lets it guide him to where it wants him to go.

At some point he’s standing on a ship, gripping the railing with enough force to make his knuckles turn white, and staring into the water while other passengers give him weird looks and whisper amongst themselves. He doesn’t have the energy to care about them, too busy trying to hold on, to not jump overboard and go back to where he should be. The water is calling to him almost louder than the voice inside his head. He stares until his eyes water and his muscles shake, and doesn’t dare move throughout the entire voyage. He’ll never understand how he found the strength to stay and not go.

 

Westward the voice pulls him when they finally leave the water and all its temptations behind, through the wilderness to a small, sleepy village nestled into the foot of a dark, grim-looking chain of mountains. There’s a pressure behind his temples, reaching all the way into his chest and pulling at his core, dragging him towards them. _On top of the mountain. The tower made of metal. A door in a room full of red tubes. A name above the entrance. And behind it…_

He doesn’t notice the way his leg muscles are screaming, unused to this much strain. He doesn’t turn around, and never sees the bloody footprints he leaves. _Forward_ something inside his mind says _Come to me._ And he does.

 

The inside of the tower made of metal makes him think of soundproof glass and water inside air inside water. He doesn’t want to be in this place. But the humming is growing louder, clearer, and he needs it to stop. _Almost there._ He climbs the steps, and takes in the letters above the door.

J-E-N-O-V-A. He can read. How does this translate to expressing? To noises? He’s almost sure he should know this particular noise. His mind says _Hojo_.

Behind the door lies a room shaped like a dome, full of tubes and wires and machines. Irrestistibly he is pulled towards the metal statue at the far side, high up on a platform. He doesn’t look down. It smells like water, but he knows it’s not. This water will be poison, and drown him with fire if he tries to swim in it.

 _Tear it down_ the not-his-mind-but-inside-and-giving-orders says. His fingers grip the edges of the statue’s torso, pulling at it to wrench it from its place. It comes crashing down at his feet, and as he raises his head he finally comes face to face with the presence inside his head.

 

Tubes. Tubes tubes tubes tubes underwater behind glass not breathing light everything quiet. His brain screams, hammering against the inside of his skull as he sees himself-but-not-quite, pierced with tubes and hooked up to machines, naked and floating with silver hair all over the place and eyes glowing brightly. Her presence inside his mind has receded for the time being, waiting for him to come back and listen. She waits, patiently, watching him.

Finally, the screaming subsides, leaving him shivering. His fingers shake as he slowly starts expressing, fishing for the words that he needs, to ask for the only thing that matters. The most important thing in the whole world.

 _Do you have music?_ he asks.

She doesn’t understand, and tentatively touches his memories as if to ask for permission. _Here? Is music here? Show me?_ He singles out something that he remembers more clearly than the rest, and tries to see through his own eyes back into the past. She watches the scene play out, and he nudges at the little detail that is the melody ringing through his mind. She hums, and seems to understand.

 _No. No music here. All quiet._ He shudders at the thought. _Open the glass?_ she asks. _Noise is outside the glass?_

His brain is screaming as he throws himself forward, his body hitting soundproof glass _Just like before. Just like back then._ but this time it’s the other way around, he’s where the noise is and needs to get to the other side, the side where it’s wrong and terrible and quiet. The shattering sound is unbearably loud in his ears and he can’t believe he was able to do this, how is the glass so weak, how can this be possible? Green liquid bursts from the containment chamber, drenching him and pouring down into the poison water below. The not-quite-him slumps against him in the middle of broken pieces of glass and torn metal, shuddering and pulling painful breaths into her lungs? Does she have lungs? He doesn’t know.

He sits and trembles and tries to calm down. He wants back into the water so badly it hurts.

Slowly, very slowly, her shuddering stops, until she’s breathing quietly against his chest. His knees hurt from where glass shards are piercing through his trousers and pressing into his skin, but he doesn’t dare move.

Out of the corner of his eye he notices movement, and turns to see that the strands of her silver-white hair, so much like his own, are crawling up his arm like sentient, living things. They touch his hair – he _shivers_ – and wrap around it, intertwining the strands until it looks like it was always like this, like they were born connected, one creature that just so happened to be separated into two bodies. For a moment nothing happens, but then she _pushes_ , and suddenly he can feel not only his hair, the very tips of it, but beyond that, into the body on the other side. She pulls him in, and holds him tightly. _Mine_ she says. _My child. We will find you again._

 

The wind bites at his skin and pulls at his clothes, and one more time he wishes he was back in the water. The other-who-is-like-him is holding onto him tightly, clawing her nails into his shoulders until they draw blood. Their connection is frail enough to be broken if they get too far apart, and she won’t risk that. If that means hurting him, then so be it.

 _Northeast, into the mountains. Treasure behind the waterfall._ She opens her mind to let him feel the way it’s pulling her. _We follow where it pulls us. We need the treasure. Treasure will make us one again. Treasure will wake you up._

He doesn’t know what that means, but her mind has a direction and a goal and his doesn’t, so what choice does he have really? 

 

She leads him to water between the mountains, deep and clear and covered by a thin sheen of ice. It’s fed by a waterfall, and in turn feeds a river that disappears down to somewhere he can’t see. _Water water water_ his mind sings, but he resists once again. He doesn’t know if the other-like-him can live in water, or if it would damage their bond. And she doesn’t seem interested in the water anyway, instead pushing him in the direction of the waterfall, whispering _Between the rocks. Secret between the rocks and the falling water. Secret secret secret treasure. Reunion._

Obediently he follows her lead, squeezing his body through the narrow passage that leads deep into below the mountain, into a damp and chilly cave system that is eerily quiet except for the faint noise of rushing water. His breath forms white little clouds, and he shivers. Water would be warmer, but he can’t. They’re so close, and he can’t lose track of where he needs to go.

The passage eventually opens into a larger room, even colder than the rest of the cave. The noise of the waterfall has faded into the distance to the point where the only thing they can hear is the occasional drip-drop of water falling from the thin stalagtites that cover the ceiling, into the lake that covers most of the room’s floor. His eyes are drawn to the large, translucent crystal formation situated right in the middle of the lake. And inside it…

 _Lucrecia_ the not-quite-him whispers in his mind, and reaches out.

 

The woman stirs, moving through the layers of the crystal as if they were water, until it gives her up and she stands on shaking feet, looking around herself and taking in the environment. Her eyes meet his, then the ones of the not-quite-him who looms behind him and glances over his shoulder. The woman frowns.

“Who…?” she mumbles, rubbing her temple “What are you doing here? How did you find this place? Did Hojo send you?”

 _Hojo is dead_ , his mind says. He signals. The woman’s eyes widen.

He continues forming words, fire and Ge-ne-sis and An-ge-al and Shin-ra and others, searching his brain for how they all go together and make sense. Almost at the end of his fumbled explanation he realizes that he forgot to tell the woman who he himself is. He remembers that. He knows it. Knows how to express the noise that belongs to him.

His hands form the string of signs that mean him, and suddenly the woman makes a painful sound low in her throat, stumbling through the knee-deep water that seperates them, reaching out for him and saying what he expressed back at him. The sound is familiar, and soothing, and he doesn’t know why it makes her hurt but it apparently does. Her hands touch his face, pulling him against her body as she repeats the noise that means him over and over and over, tears running down her cheeks. He is oddly reminded of the one who throws fireballs – Genesis, he corrects himself, he _knows_ the sound and the signs – who also used to do these kinds of things. The woman’s hands grip his neck and his back and his shoulder, desperately trying to hold him tighter, as if she’s afraid that he will vanish when she lets him go. The mind-inside-his-mind hums in anticipation at the touches, and purrs _Reunion_.

Re…union?

Fire crawls up his body from where the woman’s hands are touching him, spreading through his veins and beyond, through the connection with not-quite-him who is gripping him harder than ever, hissing into his ears and trying to reach out to the woman. He wants to pull away, escape the fire and return back, back into the water, into soothing darkness and peaceful forgetting… but it’s too bright around him, too much noise and too little air in his lungs. His name has become a mantra hammering into his head, filling his mind and feeding the fire.

_Reunion_ _._

He can’t breathe.

The woman has stopped holding him and instead watches with sad eyes as he gasps for air and claws at his chest.

“I’m sorry” she whispers. “I’m so sorry”

 

 

 _What are you sorry for?_ Sephiroth thinks, but his voice won’t obey him when he opens his mouth to speak. _It’s not your fault I lost myself._

And the mind-inside-his-mind, the creature he found in the reactor, J-E-N-O-V-A, Jenova, laughs inside his head. _You are here_ she says _Three pieces make one. And for as long as you’re with me, you won’t be lost again._

Sephiroth looks back over his shoulder, into her unnaturally bright eyes, and then back to the woman in front of him.

“Mother” he says. His voice is raspy and almost unrecognizable from disuse. It hurts to speak, like a cheese grater being pushed along his windpipe, and words are difficult after so many years of silence. “Thank you”

The woman smiles through her tears. “Anything for you. My son… anything”

 

Sephiroth leaves with Jenova still grabbing onto him, both of them acutely aware of how careful they must be. He _needs_ her. The wind outside seems colder than ever, stabbing at his skin like needles. The layer of ice on the lake outside has grown thicker. Sephiroth wonders why he ever felt the need to swim in it.

 _My cells inside her body were enough to bring you back_ Jenova whispers into his mind _But you cannot be without me. Without me you’ll fall. We have to be one now, and stay together._

“What about her? My mother?” Sephiroth croaks, coughing when his voice gives in again.

_She did what any mother would do. You needed her cells, and she gave them to you._

Sephiroth doesn’t ask again. He doesn’t want to hear the answer.

 

He manages to drag the both of them further into the mountains for another few hours before his weakened body finally gives in and he collapses. For the first time Sephiroth looks back, and sees the red footprints.

He is still in the same spot when Genesis finds him.

Sephiroth is half asleep, curled up into himself and Jenova, but jerks awake instantly when he hears the footsteps in the snow. Genesis stops dead in his tracks at the sight of them. He stares at Sephiroth’s battered and bleeding figure, and at the creature holding onto him. Something dark stirs in his eyes at the sight of Jenova, some kind of recognition that only grows when he notices the way their hair is intertwined, how their movements and expressions mirror and match. He draws his sword.

“Genesis!” Sephiroth calls out to him, hoping to avert whatever rash decisions his friend is about to make. He tries to smile, but his lips are chapped from the cold and start bleeding.

Genesis is still advancing, eyeing Jenova warily. “Hold still” he says “I’ll get her off of you”

Sephiroth frowns, confusion turning to worry and then to panic as he realizes what Genesis is planning to do. He’ll take her away. He’ll take away his memories again. Something snaps inside him.

“You can’t! I _need_ her. You don’t _understand_ ”

His voice has grown louder and shriller with each word, until the last one is barely more than a desperate wail. He has started moving backwards, scrambling to get away from his old friend who’s staring at him with such pity and decisiveness. Jenova’s nails are digging deep into his shoulders with how hard she’s holding on to him.

 _Don’t let him!_ she hisses inside his mind _Don’t let him take it! Fight! Fight back and protect us! Protect our bond with every ounce of strength you have! We need to stay together! He cannot separate us! Do not let him!_

Sephiroth wants to obey, wants to get up and draw his sword and make Genesis fight for what he’s trying to do. Except his sword isn’t there, his legs are shaking and his feet are bleeding. He used what remains of his Soldier strength to reach Jenova and carry her to the place they needed to go.

“That thing…” Genesis is saying, watching Jenova rip through Sephiroth’s shoulder and cling to him “…that thing is dangerous. The entirety of Soldier is out trying to find and contain it. It’s hurting you”

Sephiroth feels like he can’t breathe, the air getting stuck in his lungs and closing off his windpipe.

“Don’t” he gasps. He’s hyperventilating. “Please, don’t! I don’t want to go back to the way I was. I don’t want to forget again. I want to be _me_ ”

Genesis hesitates. He watches Sephiroth clutch at his chest and fight for air, the way his muscles convulse and won’t obey him. Then he sighs, and raises his sword as he takes another step forward.

“I’m sorry” he says, and it sounds like the truth, but Sephiroth can’t think, he can’t breathe, he needs to get away, needs to save himself and Jenova. He needs his memories; he needs his mind to be awake and aware; he needs to remember Genesis and Angeal and Zack and Hojo and Jenova and Lucrecia. He needs to _know_ who he is.

The blade is cold against the back of his neck, carefully gliding underneath his hair which a hand has gathered up, silver and soft and impossibly long, and the only thing saving him from the water. Jenova is screaming in his mind, ripping him apart in her anger about being unable to save them, but all Sephiroth himself can do is cry, silently and helplessly, staring at the ground in front of him and trying to remember all his happiest and most important memories at once before they disappear again, in a kaleidoscope of bright colours and noises and faces and words.

The sword jerks upwards, cutting in one swift motion.

 

 

He wakes up.

Surrounded by the familiar, safe environment of the hospital, with the wounds on his ruined feet cleaned and wrapped in bandages, and his mind feeling terribly empty. Empty empty empty empty. There was something there before. But what? What was there? What did he know? He reaches deep inside the place where his memories should be, where he _knows_ they were just a little while ago, acutely aware of the sudden loss. _I knew who I was. I knew something important about myself. Where did it go?_

He cries and doesn’t even know why.

It was never this intense, never this clear. He remembers knowing who he was, but the knowledge itself is gone, wiped from his brain. How? Why? He doesn’t know. He knows nothing.

Feeling the need to hold onto his hair for comfort and hide away for a while, he reaches behind his body to touch and gather up the soft strands and wrap them around himself, warm and soothing and familiar. His fingers touch the thin fabric of the hospital gown he is wearing, where normally he knows, _remembers_ , that hair should be. Nothing there. He frowns in confusion. He feels around and around, further up his back, until his hands reach his skull.

Then he starts screaming.

 

They can’t calm him down. They simply _can’t_. He feels his body hitting soundproof glass, steadily increasing the pressure behind his temples, and he can’t _breathe_.

He can’t _understand_.

They make noises and express things.

He can’t _concentrate_.

The meaning behind it all escapes him. He wants to curl up and hide behind his hair and never get back up. But he _can’t_. He kicks and screeches and feels like he’s drowning.

And his mind retreats, retreats to somewhere they can’t follow. Retreats until the noise is gone and he can hear his own heart again.

 _Gone gone gone_ something screams inside him, tearing at the edges of his brain violently until tears fill his eyes. _Gone gone gone gone gone. All gone._

But what?

He doesn’t know.

 

Tests are performed to see if he still knows how to signal, how to read, how to write. He refuses to eat, and is fed through needles and tubes again, just like back then. They bring him a box that plays music in an attempt to cheer him up. He throws it at the wall with enough force to make it break into pieces. He doesn’t want music. He doesn’t want anything. 

He wants…

He doesn’t know anymore what he wants. But he knows he’ll never have it.

 

Genesis rarely ever comes to visit anymore, avoiding the hospital. Questions as to what happened in the Nibel mountains go unanswered and are met with nothing but a shake of the head and perhaps a muttered “Doesn’t matter anymore”. The missions he goes on become longer and longer, drawing Genesis away from Midgar for extended periods of time, sometimes as long as several months.

Zack and Angeal still keep him company while Genesis is gone, and speak to him, filling the emptiness inside his head, if only for a little bit. It helps distract him from how light his skull feels without hair to hide behind. Distraction is everything. He needs something to concentrate on, because when everything is quiet it’s too easy to remember that he doesn’t remember.

 

The sun is shining when it happens, and the two of them are sitting outside. He is playing with a bunch of black and white figurines on a board full of squares, with Angeal watching him and making sure he doesn’t wander off. The little box that Angeal always carries around plays its happy little melody, demanding his attention. Angeal flips it open and holds it up to his ear, saying his own name and then listening to the noises from inside the box. He listens for several minutes, growing paler and paler. When the noise inside the box goes quiet he tries to speak, but all that comes out is a choked-off sob, and then he drops the box and slumps forward, shaking and drawing in irregular, labored breaths.

Angeal leaves without saying goodbye, leaving him sitting on his own without a clue what is wrong.

 

It’s raining when they pick him up from the hospital, carefully guiding him into one of the things-that-move – car, vehicle, he tries to remind himself, he knows those words – and sitting in silence as they drive somewhere – where? He doesn’t know. He moves his limbs uncomfortably, grimacing at the strange feel of clothes-that-are-not-from-the-hospital. The things-on-his-feet ( _shoes_ ) are the worst part of it all. He wants to feel with his feet. Otherwise his feet are blind. He already knows and understands so little; he _needs_ his body to find out things for him when his mind can’t.

There’s a lot of people there when they arrive, all dressed up in black. They look at him with wide eyes. He doesn’t care. Rain soaks through his clothes and makes what little is left of his hair plaster to his face like a wet curtain. He’s shivering.

Angeal explains very slowly for him to understand why they’re here. Most of the words don’t make sense or don’t seem important, but a few stand out enough to allow him to concentrate on them. _Genesis is dead. Something bad happened on a mission. Genesis made the mission go wrong himself._

He doesn’t feel anything.

They stand in the rain for a very long time while different people make noises. Angeal next to him is crying, but he himself is calm and silent. He listens to the soft drumming of the rain on the ground, and is dimly reminded of a cave behind a waterfall where there was a treasure waiting to be found. _The treasure is gone now_ the emptiness inside him whispers.

By the time they get back to the hospital, the one who throws fireballs has already disappeared from his mind, never to return.

 

He wanders the hospital grounds, trying to keep his body occupied while drifting inside his own head. Angeal and Zack visit and leave and visit and leave. Nurses do checkups and make sure he eats and drinks and exercises and doesn’t drown while bathing and help him understand when the noises people make are too fast and blurry for his confused, distracted brain. He sits by the water outside and rests his hurting feet. He tries to ignore the emptiness and the pain of missing something vital, something important. Something that he’s not even sure he would recognize if he found it.

Time passes, and he ignores it, watching people appear and disappear and sometimes never come back. It doesn’t matter. The emptiness is calling, louder every day. He follows the lines of the tattoo on his neck with his fingertips, and from somewhere deep inside a voice whispers ‘Ho-jo’. He cries and doesn’t know why.

 

The night is cold and smells of snow when he wakes up, a breeze drifting in through the open window. He can hear the waves of the water outside all the way from here, how they caress against the shore. Quietly, he leaves, unnoticed by the guards. Reminiscent of so long ago, when it was a different call he was following. But tonight it’s nothing but the water.

The grass is soft beneath his bare feet as he wanders down, the breeze pulling at his white hospital gown and the ragged strands of what remains of his hair. He stops at the shore and slowly sits down, easing his aching feet into the water and dangling them carefully. It soothes him, like he knew it would.

He tilts his head back and stares up at the stars that are so clearly visible, the sky cold and clear without a single cloud in sight. He feels like he’s never seen this many stars in his life. They fill up his vision, glittering and shining, and so very far away, forming constellations that he cannot name. The world is quiet at this time of night. There is nothing left to distract him anymore.

 _Gone gone gone_ his brain is yelling, desperately reaching for memories that aren’t there anymore. His chest tightens, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. It _hurts_.

He lowers his head, away from the stars and the clear night sky, and stares down over the water’s surface where what lies above is reflected, broken only by the little ripples caused by his dangling feet.

His skin prickles at the thought of what it would be like to go back, to hold his breath and dance like he used to. Whether it will be enough to give him peace from the wordless screaming inside his head.

He moves without even realizing, getting back up and wading into the water, deeper and deeper until it goes all the way up to his hips. The hospital gown drags behind him, clinging to his wet skin. He tears it off and throws it away, shivering at how cold the air is. The water is almost warm in comparison. The stars disappear as the waves he creates break the reflection, turning the lake into a dark pit, bottomless and so very inviting.

He follows the invitation, forgetting to hold his breath before dipping his head underwater, and suddenly he’s floating again, with water above and below and to every side.

 _Sephiroth_ a woman’s voice whispers, and then _I’m so sorry._

The screaming in his mind has turned to humming, a distant melody luring him in like a siren, calling to him and pulling at his core, promising to fill the emptiness and give him back what he lost. Deeper, it calls, deeper and deeper and deeper. He follows, and he’s so close, so very close, the realization of who he is almost on the tip of his tongue.

His muscles burn with every movement he tries to make, spreading the pain until his whole body is on fire. And suddenly it’s there.

_I’m…_

He knows.

_I’m here…_

He is awake.

_I won’t leave again…_

He remembers.

_I’ll never leave again…_

And he dies.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very particular AU of mine that is partially inspired by the indie game "INSIDE". In one section of that game, in an abandoned, partially flooded research facility, you encounter a water creature that appears to be a former specimen. That creature is what the AU is based on. If you're interested what the specimen in this story looks like in my imagination, take a look over on Tumblr: https://idariddle.tumblr.com/post/163026192709


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